OMM Club

OMM Club

One year my son gets a good teacher and the next year he has stomach aches and hates school. Second grade was great and he wanted to become a teacher like his beloved Ms Smith. This year, third grade, he breaks down on me again, crying in deep despair and says he hates school.

I wish he'd said "I don't like school. I don't want to go." But no. "I hate school" is what he says and he also says that he NEVER is going to be able to do fourth grade homework and be good enough to enter college and learn a profession he really likes. And he says he wants to be a retired adult.

I don't ever want to be a retired adult, I don't see any appeal to it, so it really worries me.

So I go to his teacher and tell Ms Pleist that my son is really frustrated and feels like he can't finish his work and that he also had to stay inside during recess to finish it and that I don't think that's a good idea. She put her fists on her waist and yells at him, "I don't understand why you are saying this, it has only happened once or twice." My son is sucking his lower lip, looking up to the teacher who towers over him and shakes his head, mumbling, "No, it happened more often." She continues angrily, saying, "I don't know where that is coming from. I just put him in the advanced learners group and he's doing a lot better, but if you are complaining," adressing herself to my son again," then I will put you back to the regular learners."

Well, I set up an appointment with the principal, since it didn't seem like she could handle a rational discussion.

I told the teacher that I would call later in the day to confirm the Parent Teacher Conference. When I called she said, "Who is this? Oh, I thought it's Sherley." Sherly is my ex-husband‘s new wife; my name is Cheryl.

So I expect the parent teacher conference to be irrational, bordering to tears (on her side) and I will have to steer back the discussion to my son.